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Retail merchants want feds to crack down online

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Retailers have seen an uptick in thefts of items that are then sold online.
AP Photo

Hoping to make prosecution easier, the Coalition Against Organized Retail Crime, including retail associations, Wal-Mart, Target and other large retail chains, has been pushing for legislation defining organized retail crime as a specific federal offense.

Stores hunt for federal agencies that will take a piece of their case, turning to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for illegal immigration issues, the Internal Revenue Service for tax fraud or even the U.S. Department of Agriculture for health violations.

That process, though, can slow down prosecution. Retailers end up dealing with regulators more interested in, say, customs violations than in quickly stopping the actual theft. A comprehensive federal statute would give stores a better path to tougher enforcement.

Retailers would also like Congress to find a way to address the online component of organized retail crime.

“We clearly want this to be able to prevent the criminals from taking advantage of the Internet,” said Allen Thompson, vice president for global supply chain policy at the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

Online sellers, retailers believe, have a responsibility to police their sites for criminal activity.

In part, that means greater disclosure from sellers. Retailers would like online sites to mandate that sellers list their names and business addresses — basic information required on most business licenses.

It also means checking into specific sellers, such as those making significant amounts of money from online transactions or offering items from lines manufactured exclusively for a specific store.

Online auction sites believe that these requirements violate the privacy of their users. Instead, they suggest tougher criminal penalties would be a better way to crack down on the thefts.

“While some tech-savvy criminals are finding ways to use Internet technologies, sensible solutions should address the entire range of distribution methods and not place disproportionate focus on less popular methods,” eBay’s senior vice president for rules, trust and safety, Robert Chesnut, told the House subcommittee.

Online sellers are also scared by the breadth of some of the state legislation backed by retailers. In Colorado, for instance, a proposal was introduced this year to make it illegal to sell baby food, infant formula, gift cards, store coupons, and prescription and nonprescription drugs in Internet auctions.

“If a state passes a law like that, then next year they will be back to make technical amendments to include other items,” DelBianco said. “That’s one of our big concerns: Where does it stop?”

Online auctioneers say retailers really want to target the competition rather than the criminals.

“Our sellers are perceived by some as their competition, and one way to attack efficient secondary market competitors that sell goods at low prices is to suggest that there is something shady about those sales, when in reality those sales are completely legitimate,” Chesnut said.

But retailers stress that they are not taking on the e-commerce world. The legislation is about crime and nothing else, they say.

”We are very careful in ensuring that a limited set of actions in the online community would be subject to this,” Thompson said. “This is not trying to regulate the Internet at all.”

I know for example there is a huge ring of DVD pirates operating on E-BAY and E-BAY does nothing. Also one of the piracy rings I have spotted is based in Germany. Even if E-BAY kicks one offline he can return using another ID -- they need to check people a lot more thoroughly. Also there is a lot of shill bidding taking place on E-BAY now. It has really gotten bad there. I have been a member for almost 10 years and it has really gone down hill in terms of cheating and pirated merchandise. Also PayPal facilitates these pirates by letting them have accounts. If they did not have PayPal account it would put a crimp in their ability to sell. It is just so hard to catch these pirates.

In todays economy, people are interested in low priced goods, and if the lobbyists keep driving up the prices, they will make it worse for themselves. This is one of the main problems with this Government, they dont regulate these greedy drug and oil companies, and they will be the economic demise of this country. Lobbyists should also be banned on the Congress floor and stiff price caps and penalties put in place for those who gouge prices. The drug companies deserve to get robbed, they been robbing the consumer for decades. The average cost of the drugs they sell have been inflated over 1000% by the time it reaches the consumer and this is an outrageous practice that the Government needs to ban. This is why people buy their drugs via the internet from other countries and their drugs are better quality but they would have you believe they are not, but you dont see anyone from other countries dying because of them and they are healthier than most Americans. The lobbyists have the Americans bamboozled. The people really have the last say in it tho, because we can boycott drug companies that inflate their prices and continue to buy them over the internet, this will give them a new perspective about charging people overly inflated prices, just like the poison food from China, the lobbyists are behind the Gov't stopping trade with China, but all we have to do as a unified people is stop buying anything labeled made in China, and China will lose so much money the 1st 30 days that they will stop exporting tainted goods. We the American people have and been had the power to stop this idiocy, but we have become too complacent to fight gnats out of our own asses, and continue to allow this mistreatment of our people.

"We the American people have had the power to stop this idiocy, but we have become too complacent to fight gnats out of our own asses, and continue to allow this mistreatment of our people."

This one comment is the gist if you will of the problem; people in the US these days have become completely lethargic as to doing anything about anything. Leave me alone! I don't want to get involved! I'm just one person; what good will my vote do??? And the list goes on and on. Do you think for one minute the people in Washington DC don't know this? Knowing as to knowing the "people" will basically do nothing. So, "they" can get away with whatever "they" want to. Until the PEOPLE of thiscountry begin to WORK TOGETHER, AND CRY OUT IN ONE VOICE, we will contine to see the same. Only trouble there is, what will the "ONE VOICE" be; democratic, republican? We can sit back, argue and fuss with each other on forums like this, or actually pull together and get something done! Personally, I don't see it happening.

I think all of this can be settled if the e-commerce sites were just required to have the people that sell on-line be registered.

This is the sort of statement I would expect from a faux conservative and McCain supporter. Ramp up the databases and collect that biometric data ... McCain wants to for the national sales tax scam anyway.

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Regarding the sale of stolen goods via e-commerce. This is law enforcement issue. Your local sheriff's department checks the pawn shops for guns and other items matching those that have been reported stolen. This sort of investigation can be done at the federal level .... matching patterns of items sold online to those that have been reported stolen. Dumping the burden of proving one's innocence on to the law abiding online seller who is trying to clean out his garage isn't the answer.

Rather than looking for terrorists behind every door while Muslim schools are federally funded to teach intolerance, bloated government bureaucracies should be doing real police work (and obtaining real results) rather than spying on law abiding citizens and forcing them remove their shoes at airports.

WV Conservative, you are so right about that. Illegal immigration is easy to stop in this country, all we have to do is penalize anyone who houses them, anyone who employs them, and ban them from using our social welfare system, when they are not entitled to the benefits by being here illegal. I dont condone selling stolen goods by internet or any other means, but i do advocate the prosecution of companies that deliberately inflate prices and sell frivilous mortgages to people. We are a working class of people in the United States, but we have been treated so unfairly by our Gov't who seems to favor illegals more than it's own citizens. We cannot start a business and get a 5 year tax exemption, but they can. We cannot get stopped for DWI and kill someone and get less than 15 years, but they can. We cannot import drugs into our country and get a slap on the wrist, but they can. We cannot march the streets of other countries asking for rights we are not entitled to, but they can. We cannot have street gangs that rob, rape, and kill people and live here illegally while doing it, but they can. We cannot have 15 people living in a 2 bedroom house and not get our children taken from us for neglect, but they can. The lobbysts that are on the Congress floor pays them to stop raids on their businesses that hire illegals. This is the reason i will vote for Barack Obama, he vows to ban lobbying on the congress floor and with good reason. Republicans call themselves conservatives, but where are they conserving America's tax payer money, i wish someone would show me that!!! We are in debt up to our necks , grandchildren and all for the millions of dollars we pay to support a war that was the biggest strategic mistake in history. Iraq , after Saddam was not a threat to the national security of the United States. After him and his son's capture and execution, the US should have withdrawn from Iraq and used our taxpayer money to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden. The Bush administration kept us in Iraq because him and Cheney are oil men, and thats all that interests them, and Mc Cain is on their band wagon as well, and Mc Cain's campaign went broke, but the lobbyists bailed him out, now he owes favors that the American people cannot afford to pay. Conservatism is about conserving this country's resources as well as many other moral issues, but most conservatives focus on the moral issues more than the financial ones, and what is morality without money to pay your bills, have transportation to work, and feed our children or provide a stable home for them? Those are the resources that need to be conserved. Our tax payer money is being used to rebuild a country that wont even step up to the plate to run their own country even if 4,000 American people are dead for nothing, but the Iraqui Gov't has not used any of the billions of dollars they make a month to help, and they still wont step up and get a decisive and precisive Gov't. This war cannot be won militarily, it has to be done diplomatically and Iraq has not done that, and cannot do that, so are we supposed to as McCain says , stay there another 50 years to make them do it? I think not. They are unapreciative of the lives lost protecting them, so i would say immediate withdrawal of American troops is in order, and let them sort out their own mess, but our Gov't has an agenda that is secret from the American people, and Bush & Cheney should be impeached and charged with treason for crimes of purgery and deception and fear tactics to keep us at war because of their greed for Iraqui oil. The American people can stop this boolshyt anytime they get ready, but as i said in my previous post, if we dont stick together as a people and shut it down, this boolshyt will continue, and on many more levels and playing fields than it does now. Crime will go up, and so will the occupation of this country by all the illegals our Gov't allows to roost in our country. Look also at the 2 border agents that are still in prison for protecting our border by shooting a known mexican cartel drug dealer. They were doing their job, but the drug dealer was patched up with your tax monedeported, and caught agaun for the same crime, illegal drug imports. Now look at Scooter Libby, he's scot free because he threatend Bush and Cheney to snitch on them for their part in disclosing the identity of a US spy. That is treason all day long, which is a way more serious crime than shooting a drug dealer, but no one is in jail for that. So look at the big picture, do you really want Mc Cain for a president when he is an advocate of these policies??? 1 more thing, the Gov't should allow ANY law enforcement agency to detain and deport anyone caught in this country illegal, and abolish the Dept of Homeland Security , that bureau is a Govt farce aimed at spying on the American people legally, and in essence taking away your right to privacy.

The NetChoice Coalition Pitch that "Increased disclosure violates the privacy of online sellers." sounds like they wish to protect the criminal rather than their own posterior. Perhaps they need to rephrase that to read "Increased disclosure violates the privacy of their criminals." and then bust them for being a party to organized crime. NetChoice Coalition is simply full of feces!